Gimme Your Money: How To Earn Credits In 'Overwatch' & Understand Its Currency

Like most games nowadays, Overwatch features an in-game currency that can be used to purchase things like taunts, new outfits, emotes and victory poses for the 21 characters available at launch. You'll be able to pick them all up with a currency called "Credits" or randomly uncover them in a Loot Box. It's nothing too complicated, so let's run through how these work.

Credits: How Overwatch's Currency Works

First, You'll Need XP

Play and finish a game of Overwatch and you'll be awarded a load of XP based on how well you and your team performed. All of this XP goes towards leveling yourself up. Here's a brief insight into how much XP you can expect from every game played:

Per second played: 4.01 XP

Match Finished: 300 XP

Match Win: 500 XP

Playing in a Group: +20% XP

Once you gain enough XP to reach a new level you'll earn a Loot Box for your efforts. But before we get into that, here's how many credits every level requires (note that it grows incrementally, but once you get to level 23 the amount of XP required to continue to reach each new level remains at 22,000).

Level 01 – 1500

Level 02 – 3000

Level 03 – 4500

Level 04 – 6000

Level 05 – 7500

Level 06 – 8500

Level 07 – 9500

Level 08 – 10500

Level 09 – 11500

Level 10 – 12500

Level 11 – 13500

Level 12 – 14500

Level 13 – 15500

Level 14 – 16500

Level 15 – 17500

Level 16 – 18500

Level 17 – 19000

Level 18 – 19500

Level 19 – 20000

Level 20 – 20500

Level 21 – 21000

Level 22 – 21500

Level 23+ – 22000

Now, let's get to that Loot.

Loot Boxes

What you see above is the screen you'll be greeted with once you open one of the Loot Boxes you earned in Overwatch (you'll be able to purchase Loot Boxes for real cash, too). In these boxes you'll uncover a random assortment of hero skins, new emotes, victory poses, voice lines, sprays, highlight intros and avatars. They're all gifted to you at random and fall into four classifications: Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary. You're guaranteed at least one rare item in every box; there are no duplicates.

But aside from cosmetic improvements, you can also earn credits in Loot Boxes, which you can see on the left in the image above. This is how you earn money in Overwatch. With this currency you can then purchase the emote you've been eyeing, the voice lines you want your characters to shout and the highlight intros you want to taunt everyone with.

None of these have any impact on the gameplay or performance of any character. They're purely there for players to express themselves during matches; the way it should be. We wish you luck in obtaining them and will see you on the battlefield!